Jerome Bowles (said the gentleman called Swiddler) was to be hanged on
Friday, the ninth of November, at five o'clock in the afternoon. This
was to occur at the town of Flatbroke, where he was then in prison.
Jerome was my friend, and naturally I differed with the jury that had
convicted him as to the degree of guilt implied by the conceded fact
that he had shot an Indian without direct provocation. Ever since his
trial I had been endeavoring to influence the Governor of the State to
grant a pardon; but public sentiment was against me, a fact which I
attributed partly to the innate pigheadness of the people, and partly to
the recent establishment of churches and schools which had corrupted the
primitive notions of a frontier community. But I labored hard and
unremittingly by all manner of direct and indirect means during the
whole period in which Jerome lay under sentence of death; and on the
very morning of the day set for the execution, the Governor sent for me,
and saying "he did not purpose being worried by my importunities all
winter," handed me the document which he had so often refused.
Armed with the precious paper, I flew to the telegraph office to send a
dispatch to the Sheriff at Flatbroke. I found the operator locking the
door of the office and putting up the shutters. I pleaded in vain; he
said he was going to see the hanging, and really had no time to send my
message. I must explain that Flatbroke was fifteen miles away; I was
then at Swan Creek, the State capital.
The operator being inexorable, I ran to the railroad station to see how
soon there would be a train for Flatbroke. The station man, with cool
and polite malice, informed me that all the employees of the road had
been given a holiday to see Jerome Bowles hanged, and had already gone
by an early train; that there would be no other train till the next day.
I was now furious, but the station man quietly turned me out, locking
the gates. Dashing to the nearest livery stable, I ordered a horse. Why
prolong the record of my disappointment? Not a horse could I get in that
town; all had been engaged weeks before to take people to the hanging.
So everybody said, at least, though I now know there was a rascally
conspiracy to defeat the ends of mercy, for the story of the pardon had
got abroad.
It was now ten o'clock. I had only seven hours in which to do my fifteen
miles afoot; but I was an excellent walker and thoroughly angry; there
was no doubt of my ability to make the distance, with an hour to spare.
The railway offered the best chance; it ran straight as a string across
a level, treeless prairie, whereas the highway made a wide detour by way
of another town.
I took to the track like a Modoc on the war path. Before I had gone a
half-mile I was overtaken by "That Jim Peasley," as he was called in
Swan Creek, an incurable practical joker, loved and shunned by all who
knew him. He asked me as he came up if I were "going to the show."
Thinking it was best to dissemble, I told him I was, but said nothing of
my intention to stop the performance; I thought it would be a lesson to
That Jim to let him walk fifteen miles for nothing, for it was clear
that he was going, too. Still, I wished he would go on ahead or drop
behind. But he could not very well do the former, and would not do the
latter; so we trudged on together. It was a cloudy day and very sultry
for that time of the year. The railway stretched away before us, between
its double row of telegraph poles, in rigid sameness, terminating in a
point at the horizon. On either hand the disheartening monotony of the
prairie was unbroken.
I thought little of these things, however, for my mental exaltation was
proof against the depressing influence of the scene. I was about to save
the life of my friend--to restore a crack shot to society. Indeed I
scarcely thought of That Jim, whose heels were grinding the hard gravel
close behind me, except when he saw fit occasionally to propound the
sententious, and I thought derisive, query, "Tired?" Of course I was,
but I would have died rather than confess it.
We had gone in this way, about half the distance, probably, in much less
than half the seven hours, and I was getting my second wind, when That
Jim again broke the silence.
"Used to bounce in a circus, didn't you?"
This was quite true! in a season of pecuniary depression I had once put
my legs into my stomach--had turned my athletic accomplishments to
financial advantage. It was not a pleasant topic, and I said nothing.
That Jim persisted.
"Wouldn't like to do a feller a somersault now, eh?"
The mocking tongue of this jeer was intolerable; the fellow evidently
considered me "done up," so taking a short run I clapped my hands to my
thighs and executed as pretty a flip-flap as ever was made without a
springboard! At the moment I came erect with my head still spinning, I
felt That Jim crowd past me, giving me a twirl that almost sent me off
the track. A moment later he had dashed ahead at a tremendous pace,
laughing derisively over his shoulder as if he had done a remarkably
clever thing to gain the lead.
I was on the heels of him in less than ten minutes, though I must
confess the fellow could walk amazingly. In half an hour I had run past
him, and at the end of the hour, such was my slashing gait, he was a
mere black dot in my rear, and appeared to be sitting on one of the
rails, thoroughly used up.
Relieved of Mr. Peasley, I naturally began thinking of my poor friend in
the Flatbroke jail, and it occurred to me that something might happen to
hasten the execution. I knew the feeling of the country against him, and
that many would be there from a distance who would naturally wish to get
home before nightfall. Nor could I help admitting to myself that five
o'clock was an unreasonably late hour for a hanging. Tortured with these
fears, I unconsciously increased my pace with every step, until it was
almost a run. I stripped off my coat and flung it away, opened my
collar, and unbuttoned my waistcoat. And at last, puffing and steaming
like a locomotive engine, I burst into a thin crowd of idlers on the
outskirts of the town, and flourished the pardon crazily above my head,
yelling, "Cut him down!--cut him down!"
Then, as every one stared in blank amazement and nobody said anything, I
found time to look about me, marveling at the oddly familiar appearance
of the town. As I looked, the houses, streets, and everything seemed to
undergo a sudden and mysterious transposition with reference to the
points of the compass, as if swinging round on a pivot; and like one
awakened from a dream I found myself among accustomed scenes. To be
plain about it, I was back again in Swan Creek, as right as a trivet!
It was all the work of That Jim Peasley. The designing rascal had
provoked me to throw a confusing somersault, then bumped against me,
turning me half round, and started on the back track, thereby inciting
me to hook it in the same direction. The cloudy day, the two lines of
telegraph poles, one on each side of the track, the entire sameness of
the landscape to the right and left--these had all conspired to prevent
my observing that I had put about.
When the excursion train returned from Flatbroke that evening the
passengers were told a little story at my expense. It was just what they
needed to cheer them up a bit after what they had seen; for that
flip-flap of mine had broken the neck of Jerome Bowles seven miles away!